1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle running state judging apparatus which judges whether a driver has lost consciousness and fallen asleep at the wheel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as the road network has developed and leisure hours have increased, the opportunity to drive a car has increased. A driver is required to keep mental and physical health while driving. However, there may be a case of driving a car in poor health. In such a case, if a driver drives continuously or for a long time, the driver may fall asleep when fatigued and having lost concentration.
To prevent the above state, a camera is mounted on a vehicle to monitor the view in front of the vehicle, recognize a white road line to check meander driving, detect falling asleep, and warn against being asleep at the wheel. (Refer to the U.S. Pat. No. 3,039,327.)
According to the above system, the camera capture the running zone line on a road and judges meander driving based on that image. There is another method of judging meander driving by recognizing a white line on both sides of a road. However, in this method, if there is no while line on both sides of the road or snow is accumulated on the whole surface of a road, it is impossible to judge meander driving.